Sergei Lavrov on Africa tour to counter accusation Russia is ‘exporting hunger’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has arrived in the Republic of Congo, the second stop on his Africa tour where he is aiming to seek support amid global anger over food shortages following Moscow’s blockade of vital Ukrainian ports.

After visiting Egypt over the weekend, Lavrov will meet Congolese leaders face-to-face on Monday before traveling on to Uganda and Ethiopia. All these countries rely heavily on wheat imports from both Russia and Ukraine.

Egypt is the world’s biggest importer of wheat, and it depends on Ukraine and Russia for a supply to feed a 100-million-strong population.

“Yesterday grain export by sea was agreed, and today the Russians are hitting Odesa port. That’s the Russian diplomatic dichotomy,” Andriy Yermak, head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration, wrote on Twitter.

News agencies confirmed that Barely 12 hours after Moscow signed a deal with Ukraine to allow monitored grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports, Russia targeted Ukraine’s main port of Odesa – through which grain shipments would take place – with cruise missile strikes.

“The enemy attacked the Odesa sea trade port with Kalibr cruise missiles,” Ukraine’s operational command south wrote on Telegram, raising doubts about the viability of the deal that was intended to release 20m tonnes of grain to ward off famine in large parts of the developing world.

Moscow has denied responsibility for the crisis, blaming sanctions for slowing its own food and fertilizer exports and Ukraine for mining the approaches to its Black Sea ports.

A Ukrainian MP has claimed Russian missiles struck a key Ukrainian port Saturday morning, only hours after Kyiv and Moscow signed a landmark deal to unblock shipments of grain

Ukraine accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “spitting in the face” of the UN and Turkey by bombing Odesa port, saying Moscow would bear “full responsibility” if the agreement failed.

Oleksiy Goncharenko, Odesa MP, claimed four “Russian Kalibr missiles” were fired at the southern port one hour ago, two of which were intercepted by Ukrainian forces.

On the other hand, Marine Traffic reported  ODESSA is a Large-sized Port. The type of vessel regularly calling at ODESSA is Bulk Carrier (100%). The maximum length of the vessels recorded to have entered this port is 300 meters. The maximum draught is 12.6 meters. The maximum Deadweight is 115724t.

ODESSA is located at the Black Sea, the Black Sea in Ukraine at coordinates N 46° 29′ 57.19″ – E 030° 44′ 38.12″. The official UN/Locode of this port is UAODS. It is also known as ODESA.

The local time at ODESSA is 2022-07-25 at 15:04:00 and the time zone is UTC +3. The wind in the port area blows from South East direction at force 2 Beaufort. 0 ships have arrived in this Port within the last 24 hours. Currently, there are 13 vessels in this Port and another 0 vessels are scheduled to make a port call at ODESSA.